Chapter Text
One thing that Neil hasn’t gotten used to, in the past sixty years at least, is the way that scars fit against his skin. Or worse, open wounds.
Back before he went on the run from Down There, an injured body was easily exchanged for fresh one that he could mess around with as much as he’d like. No scar was permanent, no wound needed a full human time of healing, because Neil was an indestructible being of power. The past sixty years have been a wake up call, and not a pleasant one.
Neil doesn’t have extra bodies now, because when this one finally lets go, he’s going straight back to Hell. Despite what Andrew might think, his stupidity doesn’t extend to thinking that he could manage to sneak in and out of Lucifer’s domain itself without being caught. If Neil goes down, it’s over.
But still, even then, it takes certain things to leave a mark on him. Neil can banish away normal cuts and bruises easily enough, but burns from Holy Water, gashes from blessed blades, and vicious runes carved into his skin linger. Most of what Riko did lingers. It doesn’t help that Neil still feels so hollowed out and powerless that he can barely manage to make his cigarette burn without a lighter. After his third try sputters out, Neil gives up and digs through his things for a match.
It’s an admission of weakness he’s glad no one else can see.
Neil swings his legs over the roof of Fox Tower, the cold wind not bothering him as much as the rough concrete hurts his back. Wymack hadn’t protested much when Neil left that morning, as if, despite everything, the human knew when Neil needed space. Most of the Foxes come back today, at least the ones Andrew considers his. He’s had plenty of time but Neil still doesn’t know what to say to them. It was his decision to leave the bruises fresh on his skin (arguably not a decision at all, considering he can’t even light a stupid cigarette). They might fit with the narrative of Neil being a fragile human, but they certainly make it harder to conceal what he got up to over break.
And then his hair, eyes, and tattoo… Well, at least the runes hadn’t changed his actual facial structure. That would’ve been a hard one to explain away.
Neil will manage with the humans, he always has. More than anything else, he just wants Andrew. Sure they survived sixty years apart. But right now Neil is defenseless and weak, and he’s gotten too used to leaning on Andrew again. He needs him. It’s something that Neil came to terms with a long time ago, but now more than ever he needs his angel.
There’s the faint sound of wings flapping behind him, and Neil whips around, heart in his throat. But it’s just Betsy. Neil swallows his disappointment down like it doesn’t make his throat ache.
The archangel gasps and Neil abruptly remembers how he looks. She steps toward him, and Neil flinches so hard he would have fallen off the roof had Betsy not caught him. It’s a good thing she does, because Neil’s not sure he could have reacted fast enough to catch himself. This body can’t handle much more.
“Neil, what-“ Her hands are on his shoulders and he can feel her trying to heal him. Pushing her back a foot, he stops her.
“Don’t. Humans have already seen.”
“What happened?” Betsy demands, fierce as he’s ever seen her. It’s confusing, the fact that she seems genuinely concerned. They’re natural enemies, she shouldn’t- That never stopped Andrew, the traitorous voice in Neil’s head points out. He ignores it.
“I spent Christmas in Evermore.”
Betsy’s wings flare, and Neil had barely noticed they were still visible. Her face schools itself into a calm neutrality.
There’s a warning in her voice when she tells him, “Andrew won’t like that.”
Neil lets himself hope. “When are you giving him back?” He’ll deal with Andrew’s reaction when he has the angel in front of him.
Betsy gives him a sharp look, before softening. “Hopefully sometime in the next few days. I told Upstairs it would look suspicious if they kept him any longer.”
Neil closes his eyes and slumps down against the ledge fo the roof. Relief makes his head spin.
“Thank you.” He doesn’t open his eyes. A hand brushes his shoulder, but when he opens his eyes, Betsy’s gone.
Neil sees Matt’s truck pull into the parking lot and grudgingly makes his way down to their room. Sprawled on the couch, he witnesses the cascade of Matt’s emotions from horror to worry to a burning anger.
“Jesus Christ, Neil.” He doesn’t stop Matt when he leaves the room and punches Kevin in the face. It’s not Kevin’s fault, not at all, but what kind of demon would he be if he prevented some good old fashioned revenge? He’ll make sure the bruise doesn’t darken and Andrew won’t even notice.
When Matt comes back in, Neil tells him without flinching, “I'm not sorry, and I'd do it again if I had to. Andr-” Before he reveals too much, Neil cuts himself off. He smoothes his almost mistake into a transition and swallows the cold hard truth down where no one can see. “The Foxes are all I have, Matt. Don't tell me I was wrong for making the only call I could.”
“I want to break his face in six places. If he ever comes within a thousand yards of you again-” Neil’s essence warms at the threat. To be cared for like this, when Andrew is the only one who has noticed him in centuries… Maybe the Moriyamas were right. Loathe though Neil is to admit it, maybe he really is the demon that loves. There’s no other explanation for the way his heart feels full to bursting. Andrew would laugh, he’s sure.
Out in the hallway, Nicky, Aaron, and Kevin wait for him. Aaron doesn’t seem very impressed, not even glancing very long at his changed appearance. Neil supposes after Drekavac Aaron knew what to expect. Nicky gasps and drops his bags to gather Neil close. Instead of freezing, Neil finds himself relaxing into the embrace. He’s not usually grateful for his small form, but Nicky holds him like something fragile, surrounding him in warmth like only Andrew can, and Neil breathes. Yeah. He loves these stupid humans that treat him like family even though he could wipe them from existence with a thought. He loves them fiercely and wholly.
It must be written across his face, because Kevin clears his throat and begins speaking in French.
“You need to be more careful.” Neil carefully pulls back from Nicky and turns his attention to Kevin. He watches Neil like he’s a memory but he doesn’t flinch back. Neil’s impressed. “You look just like-”
“Riko carved into my ribs. I can’t change back, so all I can do is duck my head and hope for the best.” Neil shrugs, and the motion sends firing lacing down his essence as every one of his injuries orders him to stop. He ignores them. Kevin looks pained.
“I get it. You two have been together since the beginning,” Kevin waves a hand uncomfortably. “Whatever. You love each other, but there are more important things-”
“Like what, Exy?” Neil fires back automatically. Wait. “Excuse me? We what?”
Kevin looks even more uncomfortable. “I said it before, you’re the demon who loves.”
Neil doesn’t argue that, even as his face heats. Before they’d been apart sixty years, he never would have called it that. Even now the word sits awkwardly. “Andrew doesn't-“
Kevin steps forward and slaps a hand over Neil’s mouth. Scowling, he demands, “Are you telling me you two have had since the beginning of time and you haven’t figured this out? Andrew cut a deal with me to find you, it was all he cared about. And Andrew doesn’t care about anything.”
Neil’s mind churns desperately as reality rewrites itself. Kevin must be wrong. He must be.
Betsy doesn’t have to call to tell him Andrew is back on Earth. Neil can feel it in his very bones, his unconscious awareness of Andrew registers the angel getting closer and closer. Everything in Neil’s world is right once more. Andrew’s essence flares bright, like it was always meant to, strong and sure and true. No ambrosia or wards muddling the waters. Neil feels Andrew enter the Tower, can even hear him in the hallway with the others if he stretches his hearing but. But.
Neil stays inside his and Matt’s suite. More than anything he wants to see Andrew, wants to let the angel hold him up. More than anything. But his body aches and screams, lines of fire cross his chest, and burns like acid pull tight across his shoulders. They feel like betrayal and like shame, and Neil knows Andrew won’t be happy.
He stays in the suite until Nicky knocks on the door. It hurts, but Neil levers himself off the couch to answer it. The human is twisting his hands in a show of nerves, even as he face tries to seem open and calm. “Hey, Neil. I, uh. Just figured I’d tell you that Andrew’s back and he’s off his meds.”
“I know.” Neil says. Nicky squints at him.
“Oh. I sort of thought you’d be in the hall with us to welcome him. I know you and Andrew have a- Okay no, I’m not even going to pretend to understand it.”
Neil shrugs and tries to look as blank and innocent as he knows how. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
Nicky stares at him. “Sure.” He says. “Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up that Andrew off his meds is. Well, he’s a lot different. You never knew him before the drugs and Columbia doesn’t really do it justice.” Neil longs to tell him just how wrong he is, but he holds his tongue. He settles for shrugging again and going back into the suite to grab his cigarettes and Andrew’s armbands which conceal a few of his blades. Neil had taken them from him after Drekavac just in case, and it was time to return them to their rightful owner.
By the time he’s back in the hallway, Matt muttering something that sounds suspiciously like good luck, Nicky hasn’t left. The human eyes the sheaths with alarm. “Maybe not a good idea to arm him right now.”
Neil snorts, already heading toward the stairwell. “As if Andrew needs a knife to kill someone.”
The trek to the roof feels longer than it should. Neil has to catch his breath by the time he reaches the door. Reminding himself that he doesn’t actually need to breathe doesn’t help. Figures that this body would be so done with his shit that it starts malfunctioning.
He takes a big, unnecessary breath and pushes onto the roof. The cold takes him by surprise, and Neil tries once or twice to tell himself he doesn’t feel it. He gives up when a particularly sharp breeze cuts through his thin clothing and resolves to convince Andrew to go somewhere warm. Ashamed of his weakness, Neil’s essence itches.
Andrew isn’t looking at him. Instead, he’s perched on the edge of the building, wings arced behind him as he gazes out at the campus. There’s something free about him that Neil has missed. A pure wildness and an untouchable distance that tells the world that Andrew has witnessed worse than this and that he will not be broken.
At the moment, Neil envies him. While he’s witnessed worse, he still feels perilously close to breaking.
Neil steps as close as he dares and slides the armbands across to Andrew. Still without glancing at Neil, the angel pulls them on, hiding the runes that have faded to the pale white of scars. Finally, finally, Andrew turns and Neil can breathe again. The angel’s face is blank and uninterested, steady and calm without a hint of volatile emotion. There’s no out of place smile or fake laughter, there’s just Andrew. The Angel of Earth, his angel.
Neil’s knees wobble a little, this stupid body unreasonably weak, but Andrew is there. Steadying him with a hand on the back of his neck, turning the air around them warm. Neil remembers this unyielding, unquestioning weight that can hold him and all of his problems up without breaking a sweat. He takes one breath and then another, eyes fixed on the collar of Andrew’s shirt. Without making eye contact, Neil points at Andrew’s shoulder. “Can I?”
After a moment of hesitation that drags out long enough that Neil almost rescinds the question, Andrew says, “Yes.”
With a shuddering exhale, Neil rests his forehead in the crook between Andrew’s neck and shoulder. The rest of his body holds itself carefully away from Andrew, but the two points of contact are enough. He shakes, just a little. The strain of trying to be fine, fine, fine with no one there to call him on it when he’s not. The strain of feeling utterly defenseless and vulnerable with no one to to watch his back. The strain of hurting and being alone, because the Foxes can never be Andrew… Neil shakes, just a little and Andrew only tightens his grip on the back of his neck.
“Neil.” He chooses not to lift his head yet. Andrew squeezes the back of his neck. It’s not a threat, but Neil lifts his head anyway. Andrew is a gloriously blank slate, but his gaze is intent. “Abram. What the fuck.”
Neil’s not sure what he means. Does he mean the bruises covering Neil’s face? Or why Neil hasn’t banished them away? Does he mean Neil’s almost breakdown?
He’s too tired to play guessing games. He just stares back at Andrew and lets him look his fill.
"Did I break my promise or were you keeping yours?” Andrew’s voice is deceptively calm, but Neil knows better.
“Neither.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Deep in Andrew’s eyes is an anger Neil barely recognizes. Kevin’s words suddenly seem more reasonable, because this is Andrew. Calm in the face of death and destruction, but it is Neil that can bring this out in him.
“Neither.” Neil repeats. “I went to Evermore by choice.”
Andrew goes still. “The heights of your idiocy astound me.” The bandage on Neil’s cheek disappears without Andrew so much as twitching. Just imagining the four, stark on his cheek makes Neil want to curl inward. Andrew doesn’t let him. “Show me the rest.”
Neil nods, suddenly shaky. He gets the sweatshirt halfway up his torso before something twinges and pulls and he has to stop for breath. Andrew huffs in annoyance and bats his hands away. The sweatshirt disappears, leaving Neil’s torso bare except for the tape and gauze holding him together. Andrew unveils each fresh wound without saying a thing, but Neil can feel the weight of his stare.
“I promised they would not touch you again.” Andrew says. “Why did you make me break my word?”
“I had to. Riko said- If I didn’t, he’d get you reassigned to heaven. I couldn’t let that happen.” Neil searches for smirk, and manages one that’s not quite to his usual standards but is decently respectable. “You can’t keep your promises and sing psalms at the same time.”
Andrew grabs his chin and forces Neil to look at him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking I need your protection. That is not our deal.”
“How could I live with myself if I let it happen? Being trapped there would have killed you.” Neil bites back. Andrew’s hand is still on Neil’s chin, almost cradling his jaw. Whatever they say to each other, Neil doesn’t want to lose the contact. “You spend all this time watching my- our backs. Who’s watching yours?”
Andrew drops his hand and stalks a few feet away. A cigarette appears in the angel’s hands, already lit as he stares out at campus. The warmth goes with him and Neil shivers, bare skin immediately erupting in goosebumps. “I hate you.” Andrew says, almost conversationally. He turns back to Neil, and while he doesn’t frown, his eyebrows do a thing. A thing that Neil knows how to read. “Why are you cold?”
“It’s barely 40 degrees out.” Neil says flatly, but still he tilts his neck. Andrew’s eyes focus on the red ring of bruises that wrap around his throat. “There was a collar they had me wear, rendered me basically human.” Neil shrugs, and looks away. “So I couldn’t fight back. Everything’s still all messed up now, can’t even light a cigarette without a match.”
A rush of warmth banishes Neil’s goosebumps, and he’s suddenly wearing his sweatshirt again. When he looks over at Andrew, there’s a muscle in the angel’s jaw jumping. “I’m going to kill them all.” He steps closer to Neil. His hands aren’t gentle when they press into Neil’s cheeks, but his bruises switch from sharp pain into memories. They still paint his skin, but they don’t hurt, as Andrew saps the ache right out of him.
His forehead finds Andrew’s shoulder again. Neil breathes smooth and slow as Andrew squeezes his nape.
“The next time someone comes for you, stand down and let me deal with it. Do you understand?” Andrew’s voice is still calm and steady, but underneath… Underneath he can hear the steel.
Neil shakes his head a bit, but Andrew stills him. “If it means losing you, then no. I went sixty years without you, and I won’t do it again. I won’t.” He’d rather die.
“I hate you.” Andrew repeats. But he doesn’t let go. He lets Neil lean on him, he holds him up. “You are a pipe dream.”
“I’m a demon.” Neil mumbles. It doesn’t sound very convincing and Andrew ignores him. In the back of Neil’s mind, Kevin’s words echo.
Neil doesn’t particularly remember getting into bed, or falling asleep, but despite that he wakes up on Wednesday morning under a pile of blankets. Andrew.
What’s more, when he sits up, his various aches and pains are gone. It doesn’t hurt to get dressed, or stretch out stiff muscles. He glances in the mirror, and the wounds are still there, as fresh and raw looking as they had been yesterday, but when he pokes them they don’t hurt. Between the full night’s sleep, the lack of pain, and the warmth curling in his stomach at the idea of Andrew taking care of him, of Andrew being this careful, well. Neil feels better than he has in weeks. If only his essence and powers were so easily healed.
The suite is empty with Matt off at the gym, and so Neil might as well do some research. He heads down to the library.
It’s doubtful that Palmetto State will have the ancient religious texts that he needs to start formulating a plan, but it’ll be somewhere to start at least. He’s buried in a back corner, flipping through a religious tome about the twelve major artifacts of heavenly power, when he senses Andrew. Neil looks up and the angel appears not long after.
After so long dealing with an Andrew twisted up into a manufactured joy, seeing him now, blank, a calm port in a raging sea, makes Neil smile.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Andrew bites out. His eyes flick down to the book Neil’s holding, and he sighs. “Explain later. We have practice.”
Neil follows him obediently out to the car, smirking. “I didn’t realize you’d missed Exy that much.”
“Shut up.”
Once in the car, Andrew makes Neil charge his phone, and he rolls his eyes. At the stadium, Abby undresses him carefully, tutting over his strange burns and cuts. He waits for the questions that he can’t answer, but they never come.
His first physical, it’d been easy enough to convince Abby that his scars weren’t there, that he was a normal, healthy, human teenager. Now, Neil doesn’t have enough supernatural energy at his beck and call to so much as light a cigarette. And yet. Abby simply pokes and prods and disinfects, not saying a word.
“What did Wymack tell you?”
Abby finally looks up. “About your new tattoo and style. And that your injuries aren’t what I’m used to.” As if that’s that, she goes back to her exam.
Neil clears his throat. “You won’t ask?”
“I’ve seen the way you bounce back from hits, Neil. I’m not as surprised as I should be that when you do go down, it’s a little different. I want to ask, but I won’t pry. David didn’t have to warn me that you’d keep your mouth shut.” She smiles, but its wry.
By the time Abby’s finished, some of the lines in her forehead have smoothed out. “You’re not in any pain, are you?” Carefully, Neil shakes his head. Abby sighs in what could only be relief. “Good. Good, that makes me feel better. I just want you to be okay, Neil.” She cups the side of his face gently, with one, soft hand.
It’s the same feeling as when Nicky embraced him, this overwhelming warmth and gratitude. These humans, these weak, oblivious humans. They treat him like he’s worth everything, like they love him. Regardless of the secrets he keeps, the lies he tells, the distance he tries to put between them and him—they love him. His whole being burns with his surety. He will protect them, he will keep them safe, because they are all his.
This must be what things are like for Andrew.
Despite the fact that he’s not really in pain, Abby can’t clear him, for appearance’s sake if nothing else. It chafes, but Neil understands, he does. Even if they don’t hurt, stitches can still tear and put wear on his barely surviving body.
Abby still looks unbearably sad as he gets to his feet. “I wish I could protect you all, but I'm always too late. All I can do is patch you up afterward and hope for the best. I'm sorry, Neil. We should have been there for you.”
“I wouldn’t have let you be.” He says, and stays very still as Abby hugs him. After a minute, he loosens and hugs her back. She’s so fragile in his arms, so brief, and he wonders if she can sense the steel rigidity in his soul that marks him as inhuman.
Dan curses when she gets a good luck at him, but he’s not moving as gingerly as he could be, as Matt may have warned them about. When Matt catches his eye, Neil shrugs a little. “A good night’s sleep made all the difference.”
The girls don’t say anything else.
That night, Andrew is waiting for Neil on the roof. The cold still makes him shiver, but only for a second until a layer of warmth wraps around him. Andrew doesn’t so much as look at him until Neil steals his cigarette for his own.
Casually, Andrew grips the back of Neil’s neck. The faint uneasiness that has plagued him all day—from the vulnerability of being without powers, the constant attempts to appear like a recently trampled human—vanishes. He sighs and closes his eyes.
When Andrew tugs his forehead down to meet his own, Neil doesn’t so much as blink, loathe to break the spell. The touch calms him, centers him. Andrew squeezes the back of his nape until Neil deigns to open his eyes.
Andrew stares at him, golden and serious and sure.
“I will protect you.”
Neil shakes his head, careful not to dislodge their foreheads. “You can’t do it forever. Eventually-”
“We have a deal.”
“And I can’t hold up my end. I’m useless like this, I can’t protect myself, never mind protect Kevin and the others.”
Andrew’s mouth twists. “It will come back, Abram.”
Neil should feel happy at aggravating so much emotion out of Andrew, Kevin’s words twisting at the back of his head. And suddenly, they seem too close, so very, very close.
Neil holds still, and forces himself to speak. “It’s not a fair deal if I’m giving you nothing, Andrew. You should just-“
Andrew huffs out a breath, and the warm air brushes across Neil’s face. He’s near human and so sensitive to it that it almost burns. “Fine. Then find something else you can give me.”
The word tumbles out before Neil thinks about it. “Anything.”
Something flashes deep in Andrew’s eyes, gone before Neil can catch it.
Andrew kisses him.
Neil somehow isn’t expecting it. Isn’t expecting the way Andrew guides him with the hand on the back of his neck. Isn’t expecting the fierce press of lips, the burn that lights him from the inside, the desire that seems new and out of place.
Neil kisses back. Fumbling and amateurish, but he fights Andrew for control in the way they’ve always fought each other. A fight that isn’t a fight so much as a dance. A fight that neither of them is supposed to win, but a fight that is meant to go on for centuries, millennia.
Neil stuffs his hands in his pockets so he won’t be tempted to touch, and kisses him, kisses him.
Time drips away, but Neil is none the wiser. Too busy putting in the effort, sighing soft into Andrew’s mouth when the angel’s hand winds into his hair, too busy feeling.
Eventually, Andrew pulls back and Neil lets him go with a sound almost like a whine.
His lips tingle, and Neil realizes he hasn’t been breathing, hasn’t felt the need to for as long as Andrew has held him so carefully. Not entirely burnt out then.
When he opens his eyes, Andrew is watching him with burning eyes. There’s a question in them perhaps.
“Yes. I want this, Andrew.” Neil feels breathless, shaken. But he means it.
“There is no ‘this’.” Andrew says. He sounds normal, bored almost. If it weren’t for the red of Andrew’s lips, Neil would almost believe him. Almost.
“There’s been a ‘this’ since at least the dark ages, and you know it.”
Andrew’s right eyebrow twitches a bit, but he doesn’t address the claim. “It won’t be a part of any deal.”
“Of course,” Neil agrees immediately.
“Since when are you interested in,” It looks like Andrew’s searching for the right word. “Lust,” He finally settles on.
Neil shrugs. “I’m not really, not in general. I’m just interested in you.”
“I hate you. Ninety percent of the time the very sight of you makes me want to commit murder.” Andrew sounds unbearably bored by the idea.
Neil smiles. “What about the other ten?”
“I reserved that for when you open your stupid mouth.” Andrew informs him.
Neil laughs, and he feels lighter for it. “Kiss me, angel.”
“Shut the fuck up.” But Andrew buries a hand in his hair and does it anyway.